Archive: September 26, 2016

At the heart of kundalini yoga is being able to embrace yourself as an energy being and then, everything else. If you are a student of kundalini yoga and have not yet grasped that embracing yourself as an energy being is important then you are missing the whole point. Google the word “kundalini” and you’ll find no end to all kinds of myths and fears about what Kundalini Yoga really is. It seems, it is quite the mystery. But in my experience, that has been part of the excitement of it.

Kundalini yoga is the unfolding of your inner being. It is the transformation of your inner being that is eventually reflected in the outer. What do I mean by unfolding? Unfolding is the process of peeling away the layers that make us believe we are anything but manifestations of the divine – completely pure.

This time of year the signs of our shift from summer to fall start to enter our field of awareness. The leaves on the trees start to turn, the geese offer their distinctive calls, the angle of the sun shifts. Even when the temperature creeps up to mid-summer levels we know in our hearts that it’s really just summer’s last gasp where cooler, drier weather is forthcoming. The Autumnal Equinox begins September 22nd at 9:21 am where night and day are the same twelve hours in length all over the world. This is the reason it’s called an “equinox”, derived from Latin, meaning, “equal night”. From this point until the vernal equinox in the spring, there will be more hours of darkness than light.

How does this transitional time of year affect our wellbeing and our yoga practice? According to ayurveda “science of life” fall is a “vata” time of year with the air and ether (space) elements predominant. Autumn is cool, windy, dry, unstable, invigorating, mobile, clear-all qualities of the vata dosha. These qualities can leave us feeling off kilter, unresolved, and out of sync. To balance the vata nature of the season it is best to minimize light, airy, drying foods and increase warming, oilier, heavier type nourishment (think soups and stews). Regarding asana practice, it is best to minimize vata increasing practice (quick, movement oriented, vigorous) and instead focus on slow, gentle, warming type of practices. Asana that promotes a greater sense of grounding, warmth, stability and focus are all vata pacifying. Energetically, the balancing effects of nadi-shodhana (alternate nostril breath) help us find our center and more fully enjoy this beautiful transitional season.

A great time to start a meditation practice as we begin to look inward or transition into fall with your existing dedicated practice use these questions borrowed from Seasonal Yoga :

Take time to consider what is your own personal harvest?

Who has helped you to achieve this and how could you thank them?

As the trees let go of their leaves, what do you wish to let go of?

And what seeds do you want to incubate over the winter, ready to grow and blossom next spring?

Explore your transition as you flow into fall and remember…

Sunlight and shadow go within. Focus your senses. Face the challenge. Balance sunlight and shadow. Blend with the path. This is the way of the Tao. -Tao. 56

“I want to say, in all seriousness, that a great deal of harm is being done in the modern world by belief in the virtuousness of work, and that the road to happiness and prosperity lies in an organized diminution of work.”

—Bertrand Russell, from In Praise of Idleness

“Step onto your mat and out of your day,” the teacher sings out as she leads us through initial sun salutations. Her voice is cheerful, her instructions clear and confident, and all the students around me seem excited to be here. But I find myself growing agitated. With each passing forward bend, step-back, updog and downdog, I find myself feeling more and more frustrated and annoyed.

It isn’t until we stop and rest in mountain pose, my breath slowing and mind quieting, that I realize why. I was halfway through my inhalation when she told me to exhale. I was still exhaling when she told me to inhale. I was being directed toward a fast-paced breath at a time when I just wanted to slow down. I stepped out of my fast-paced day into an even faster-paced yoga class.

The rest of the class is more of the same: encouragement to move quickly and cheerfully from pose to pose, while I grumble to myself about the shortcomings of modern postural yoga.

Slow Down

The phrase ran over and over through my mind like a mantra. Sometimes I listened to that advice, breathing and moving at a rate that made sense to me. And sometimes I listened not to my breath but to the radiant teacher whose siren song of speedy vinyasa would draw me away from my leisurely flow.

Speed is the ideological fuel of industrialization. As the saying goes, time is money. As a result, saving time means saving money. In pre-industrial cultures not organized around money, time is organized differently. The Hopi language does not have verb tenses, which means there is no way to indicate or differentiate past from future. If your day were sequenced as a series of present moments that exist only now, moving quickly would be reserved for emergency situations only.

In the world’s transition to industrialization, the whole nature of time shifted dramatically. Rather than simply meeting basic needs (hunting, farming, foraging, etc.), work was organized in shifts and paid by the hour—with the most productive industries becoming the most profitable ones. And productivity meant getting things done fast.